And this is the way the world ends
by furyofthetimelords
Summary: Five times the end of the world comes and five times, they find each other along the way. (Or, a collection of fics that follow Clarke and Bellamy at the end of the world). AU.


**A/N: Though these are all separate stories, I suppose they could also be read as a 'reincarnation' thing (but imagine it's through various 'universes' instead of time periods). Proof read by me, so all mistakes are my own. **

* * *

><p><span>And this is the way the world ends<span>

I.

For as long as she can remember, Clarke has known the world was supposed to end when she was eighteen. It was not the fact of her turning eighteen that meant the world would end, but rather, it was a marker for the time when it would happen, though nobody could tell her how.

Growing up in a world such as this, it consequently meant that everyone thought they knew what was best for her. They liked to think they were giving the best to her, but it usually meant she felt suffocated, trapped by what people wanted for her with no time to decide if she actually wanted what they were offering.

So, a week before the world is about to end, Clarke runs away. She doesn't leave a note.

It was surprisingly easy feat to accomplish – all she had to do was make sure it was a night her parents were out at yet another pre-apocalypse party and she simply walked out of the house, a single suitcase stuffed with cash and other essentials in tow.

_I'll finally do something for myself_, she promises as she walks away from the only home she'd ever known. Clarke wouldn't miss it. In this world, she has no illusions of permanence. The world was going to end, anyway, so it doesn't matter to her. Of course, it did have the opposite effect on other people. Some liked to hoard and cling to everything they had, as if that could possibly make a difference.

Eventually, Clarke found her way to the highway and stood at its side, holding out her thumb at the passing cars.

It takes her three hours to find a ride.

The car itself was a nondescript blue car. The driver, however, was another matter. It was a guy perhaps a year older than her, with dark eyes and a particularly handsome face.

"Are you a serial killer?" she asks him.

The boy laughs. "No. Just a sucker for pretty girls," he replies.

"You're sweet," she says with a smile. "Where are you off too?"

"Anywhere you want," he says flirtatiously.

"Anywhere?" she asks, flirting back.

"Of course, Princess."

Clarke pauses for a moment, thinking of somewhere she might like to go. "I've always wanted to go to Washington."

"DC?" he asks with a raised eyebrow.

"State," she replies.

"We're in Atlanta," he says, as if she isn't aware of the fact.

"I like road trips," she says with a shrug.

The driver pauses for a second, considering. Clarke wonders if he'll just leave her here. God, she hopes not. He's cute. "I guess I can do Washington. Might be fun."

And then they're off. There's small talk, though they don't say much about the end of the world. Clarke finds out the driver's name is Bellamy Blake and he dropped out of school when he was sixteen, mostly because he didn't see the point. He has a sister called Octavia, but they don't talk (though Clarke doesn't miss the affection in his voice when he talks about her).

Clarke tells him about herself too, at first shyly, but soon finds herself becoming more and more open with him. He does the same. It's a strange experience for both of them, but not unenjoyable. It doesn't take her long to realise that she doesn't want this to end.

/

It takes then almost six days to reach Washington, for a couple of reasons. Reason number one is the traffic. People are filling up the roads at a rapid rate, all scrambling to get _somewhere else_, just like they are. This often leaves them stuck on stretches of road for hours on end, talking quietly as time passes by.

The second reason is Clarke herself. She likes taking detours, stopping at whatever ridiculous motel that takes her fancy. Bellamy is strangely happy to oblige. Though, they don't sleep in the same bed, it doesn't mean Clarke doesn't think about it a lot.

There's a heavy silence in the car when they finally reach the state line.

_Welcome to Washington. The evergreen state, _the sign proclaims cheerily. Clarke feels her stomach drop. Here she is. Where she 'wanted' to go.

Clarke doesn't know what's next from here, mostly because she never quite thought that far ahead. Besides, if she's honest, it was never about the destination. She just wanted to go somewhere.

"I don't want this to end," Clarke admits to him.

"Me either," Bellamy admits, taking one hand off the steering wheel so he can hold hers.

/

On the day the world is supposed to end, Clarke quietly turns eighteen. Bellamy gives her a cupcake with a candle on top.

"Happy Birthday, Princess," he says, placing a kiss on her cheek.

Though she's thousands of miles away from home and with a person she only met last week, Clarke feels like it's the best birthday she's ever had.

/

The end of the world happens three hours later. They're still together when it happens.

* * *

><p>II.<p>

When he was five, Bellamy Blake saw the end of the world in a dream. At first, he believed what his mother told him, that it was just a nightmare and promptly forgot all about it. But when he's twenty-three and the sky suddenly turns from blue to black in an instant, it all comes back to him.

The first thing he feels is guilt. Guilt for not being able to stop it, to warn someone, though he doesn't know how he would've achieved such a feat, especially at five years old.

Nobody really knows what to make of this sudden turn of events, though people eventually decide that it's probably something to do with global warming and promptly carry on with their lives.

Bellamy does the opposite. He quits his job and sells everything he owns, bar his car and a handgun. His sister Octavia calls him crazy and refuses to speak to him. His friends come to a similar conclusion, though they're much less nice about it.

He tries not to let any of it bother him, but it's hard when the only people he's ever really given a shit about decide to desert him now, especially when he knows there's never going to be the time to make up. So, he does the only thing he can think of: leave. It's not like there's going to be anything left for him here.

It takes him several days before he finds somewhere he wants to stop. Having started in a big city, Bellamy decides a small town might as well be the best place for the end of the world, if his vision was anything to go by. The place he finds is somewhere in Arizona called Ark, which is about as dry and dusty as he expects. The people here are reacting perhaps a little more like the world is ending, which suits him just fine. So, he settles into a stool at the bar and resolves this is where he'll spend his last days on earth.

Not ten minutes go by before someone talks to him.

"The hell are you?" a blonde asks him. She's perhaps a year or two younger than him, with bright blue eyes and, in Bellamy's opinion, totally hot.

"Bellamy Blake," he says, holding out his hand with a smile. He's trying for charming.

The blonde isn't smiling. "You're in my spot," she says, looking at him pointedly.

"I don't see your name on it."

"I sit here every day," she replies. "Everyone knows that."

"All day?" he asks, raising an eyebrow. She blushes.

"No," she says indignantly. "Not all day."

"You could sit on my lap then," he says, expecting her to blush again, or maybe even walk away.

Her eyes fix on his. "Fine then," she says and before he can react, she's actually in his lap, her bony ass digging into his thighs.

"So, you really think the world is going to end?" he asks conversationally. There's a few signs around, advertising an 'end of the world' special on drinks.

The blonde shrugs. "You never know," she says. "Besides, the beer is cheaper, so I'm not going to complain."

"Point," he says, taking a sip of his own glass. It's barely cold, but it's something cooler than the oppressive heat outside. How it can still be so hot with the darkness in the sky is a mystery to Bellamy.

"Get me one of what my stool has, Clyde," the blonde says the the bartender. The bartender laughs and fills her up a glass and the blonde takes a long gulp of the amber liquid.

"So, you have a name?" Bellamy asks.

"Clarke," she replies with a smile.

/

And so begins their routine. After that first drink, Bellamy makes sure he turns up at the bar the next day at the same time, taking the same seat he did the day before. Clarke always turns up three minutes later and sits in his lap. They talk a little, mostly flirting, but he finds out more about her.

She's twenty-one and stuck in this place, despite her wishes to become a nurse. Bellamy tells her that she might have the chance to one day, though he knows better than anyone here than there's no time for that. He also learns her father is three years dead and from the way she talks about him, Clarke still loves him a lot. It makes him think of his sister, still too angry at him to pick up the damn phone.

Clarke tells him the dark sky is the best thing to happen in Ark in years, because "It's not like anything exciting happens in this damn place anyway."

Bellamy tells her about home, about living in a big city where people never stop moving. Clarke finds his tale endlessly fascinating.

"I can't believe you live in a place that big," she says, shaking her head. "Ark must look like a dump to you."

"It has its charms," he says with a smile, looking right at her.

"Maybe you'll be convinced to stick around a while," she replies.

"I could be," he says, though he knows there won't be much to stay in a week from now, if his vision was right. First, the darkness, then the storms and finally, the end. That's how it goes.

However, when Clarke smiles at him, he almost forgets about everything.

/

It takes four days for the storms to come. When he hears the first rumble of thunder as he sits in the bar waiting for Clarke, Bellamy's stomach churns.

_Here it comes_, he thinks. The other patrons barely take notice, still sipping their beer and grumbling about the rapture. There's fewer people here than the first few days, Bellamy notices. Most people are going to the church, spending their final days in prayer.

Bellamy has sometimes felt tempted, but he's never really been one for religion. Too many rules.

"What's with the long face?" Clarke asks as she sits down on his lap. Her jeans are damp her hair sticks to the back of her neck.

"Nothing."

"What? You don't really think the world's gonna end? It's just raining," she says, shaking her head, which leaves flecks of water all over his face.

"No," he lies. "It's really nothing, Clarke."

She turns to look at him, leaning against the bar to look him in the eye. "You don't look fine. Finish that beer and I'm taking you out."

"Are you asking me on a date?" he asks with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm cheering you up," she replies. "Getting you out of that funk."

"I'm not in a funk," he argues and drains the last of his beer.

Clarke hops off his lap and holds out her hand. "Come with me," she says.

He takes her hand, wondering if this is a good idea or not.

/

The sky above them looks like it's being ripped apart, but Clarke smiles up at it anyway.

"Where are we going?" Bellamy asks, holding his arm above his head, but it's futile. The rain is coming down in full force.

"My place," Clarke says.

"Oh, is it like that?"

"No," Clarke says with a roll of her eyes, but Bellamy can see her flush in the darkness. Suddenly, there's a flash of lighting and for the first time in a week, the sky is bright. Bellamy squints, eyes trying to adjust to the light, but it's gone again in an instant.

He follows Clarke to her home, which turns out to be a short walk from the bar itself. It's a small one-storey house with a sagging roof.

"It might not be up to your big city standards, but it's home," Clarke says.

"Looks fine to me," he says. It's already better than the apartment he owned back home.

"Don't lie," Clarke says as she lets him in.

"So, you live here alone?" he asks.

"Pretty much," she replies without elaboration.

"So, what are we doing here?" Bellamy asks curiously.

"Hot cocoa."

"What?" Bellamy replies. It's such a strange request that his mind takes a minute to process exactly what she says.

"You look sad. Hot cocoa always cheers me up. Sit down on the couch."

"It's hot as hell out here and you want to make hot cocoa?" he asks. The rain might have been kind of cold, but the weather has gone from dry heat to humid.

"You won't be saying that when you taste it," Clarke replies with a mischievous look in her eye.

Then they lapse into silence, the storm growing louder and drowning out all sound. Bellamy watches Clarke. She looks happy, moving around the kitchen and grabbing various things out of cupboards as she prepares their drinks. It's a nicely domestic scene. For a moment, Bellamy lets himself pretend there's a real future for him in a place like this. But then there's a huge _crack_ as lightning flashes in the sky and he's back to reality.

"Now drink that and tell me you don't feel at least a little better," Clarke says when she's done, handing him a mug before flopping down on the couch beside him.

The mug is warm in his hands, but it's not entirely unpleasant. He takes a sip of the liquid, which is perfectly sweet, a nice change from the bitter taste of beers he's been drinking for the past few days.

"Told you it was good," Clarke says when she notices his reaction.

"It's not bad," he admits.

"So, tell me, what's got you so sad?"

He doesn't know how to tell her the entire truth, so he starts with some of it. "My sister," he says. He's talked about her with Clarke before, but he's yet to tell her what happened. "She was angry with me and I left before we had a chance to make it up."

"Why did you leave?" Clarke asks.

"I... I guess I just wanted to get out of the city for a while," he says.

"I don't think I'd ever want to leave the city."

"It's not that great, Clarke."

"You might say that..." Clarke says teasingly.

"Yeah, I guess I do. This place is nicer," he says and it's true. Now that he's come here and spent a few days, Bellamy isn't convinced he'd rather be anywhere else. He only wishes his sister was here too.

"Oh really?" Clarke says, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah," he says. "Give me Ark over a city any day."

"Well at least one of us likes it here," Clarke says.

"C'mon, you have to admit this place is amazing."

Clarke shakes her head. "I don't really see it."

"I do," he says and in a moment of impulsivity, he kisses her. It's a small, quick touch of lips at first, but then after a moment, Clarke's using her free arm to grab a fistful of his shirt and pull him closer. It's somewhat awkward, but still a perfect moment.

"Wow," she says when they pull apart. "You're not bad."

"I'm an exceptional kisser."

"Oh... I don't know," Clarke says with a wicked smile on her face. "I might need to try again, just to be sure."

"If you insist," he says, placing his mug down on the low table in front of the couch so both arms are free. Clarke does the same and then, after the briefest hesitation, they're kissing again.

This time, it's much less awkward and pretty soon they're lying on the couch, making out enthusiastically. Hands gripping shirts, then bravely trace the hem before sliding up underneath. Lips touching, barely pausing for a breath.

All thoughts about the end of the world fly out of Bellamy's head and all that's left is Clarke, Clarke, Clarke. He's all too happy for this distraction.

_Don't let it end. Please let me be wrong_, he thinks later, once they're lying on the couch together, but the storm is raging on outside, a firm reminder of the dwindling amount of time this earth has left.

/

Bellamy isn't wrong. The end comes exactly as he saw it when he was five, but he's too busy looking at Clarke to notice.

* * *

><p>III.<p>

Clarke is fifteen when she told she was going to die for the first time. That was just cancer, a barely one in a hundred chance she'd make it out alive on the other end. Now, when she's eighteen and proving all those doctors wrong with every damn day she lives, Clarke told it's going to happen again. But it isn't just about her this time.

They're saying it's some kind of asteroid, big enough that it's impossible it'll break up before impact, but small enough that some people still want to hope.

Unlike Clarke, this news changes everyone around her. Suddenly, everyone wanted to leave, as if by running away they could hope to outrun the inevitable. Clarke ses no point in trying. Running away wouldn't solve a damn thing. Her parents were some of the first to leave, insistent that if they found the right place, the end of the world might not actually happen. That there could be a possibility of escape if they only just figured out the best place to be.

This place, as it turned out, was a nature reserve three states over. Clarke doesn't want to go, but her pleas to just stay at home in Ark fell on deaf ears. It was like she was fifteen and dying again and her parents were signing her up for every single experimental treatment they could find. She hates it all.

The worst part was that she was stuck here with no escape. The whole smells of weed and overcooked vegan food, with new-age types everywhere, forming yoga clubs and handing out flyers on the benefits of chakra cleansing. Clarke wants to burn it all to the ground. She doesn't understand this place - how could anyone be so stupid as to think anything, especially yoga, could somehow make the fact that the Earth is going to be nothing but dust pretty soon untrue.

Clarke hates lies, and this, to her, is perhaps the biggest lie ever told. This whole place was a pretty picture trying to disguise an ugly truth.

So most days, she fights her way through the haze of 'incense' and finds a secluded corner to lie down in to stare up at the sky. It's peaceful, and most of all completely free of people, so Clarke feels like it might just be the best place in the world. It's here she doesn't have to smile and keep pretending to go along with what her parents tell her to do.

This goes on for a week before she finds herself with company.

Clarke is asleep at the time, taking a much-needed nap (as it turns out, these hippies here _really_ love their late night parties) when she feels a sharp poke. She jolts awake, wondering, wildly, if the impact has come, but as soon as she sees someone leaning over her curiously, Clarke shifts gears into a whole different kind of panic.

"What the _fuck_?" she demands, trying to sound angry in order to mask her fear.

"I thought you were dead or something," the stranger says with a shrug. Once her eyes have adjusted to the light, she notices the stranger is actually pretty hot.

"Well I'm not," she says and sits up. It appears she's not going to sleep anymore today.

"So, what were you doing asleep out here? Or was it a bad trip?" the stranger asks, smirking.

"God, no," she replies reflexively. Who does this guy think he is, assuming she's some kind of junkie? "I was just sleeping."

"At this hour?" the stranger asks, looking at her curiously.

"A good as time as any," she says. "It's not like there's much else to do around here."

"True," the stranger says with a laugh. It's a nice sound and Clarke immediately decides she wants to hear it again.

"My name's Clarke." She holds out her hand for him to shake.

He takes it. "Bellamy."

/

It's surprisingly easy for Clarke to get to know Bellamy. Perhaps it's because they're spending most of their time in the forest, talking about anything and everything.

She learns that he's twenty, lived in a small town his entire life and has a sister called Octavia he would die to protect. She can tell he's the sort who came here with hope in his heart, though she doesn't think he'd ever admit it.

Clarke tells him about her too, though she doesn't tell him about her cancer or exactly why she's so calm about the prospect of the end of the world. Bellamy seems somewhat bothered by her attitude, endlessly questioning her any time it's brought up.

"I don't see why you're all so doom and gloom," he says after another of her tirades about this camp. It's day four of knowing him, another week until the world is going to end.

"I'm not," Clarke says with a shrug. "I just like to be realistic."

"I wouldn't call that realistic."

"You don't think it'll happen," she says. it's the first time Clarke has said it out loud. Bellamy looks surprised.

"I don't-" he protests, but Clarke knows better.

"You do," she says, cutting him off. "But I don't think like you. I'm not scared of any of this."

"You haven't said why," Bellamy notes. There's an unasked question in his voice.

Clarke takes a deep breath. "I was told I was going to die when I was fifteen. Cancer," she elaborates when she sees his expression. "I beat it, though. So, no, I'm not afraid of any of this. It's just how it is."

When he doesn't immediately say anything, Clarke braces herself for the pity she's come to expect from people once they find out she was sick. It was worse when she was actually dying, looking every bit the stereotypical cancer girl - bald and skinny with tubes poking out of various body parts.

But the pity doesn't come, instead, he says: "Well, I guess I can't argue with that."

/

It's three days before the impact, almost a week of knowing Bellamy now, when Clarke realises she might not actually be okay with the idea of the world ending. That there might be something that she really, really does not want to lose.

All of it come crashing down on her when she's talking with him, not even about anything in particular. She's crying before she even knows what's going on. Bellamy doesn't say a word about it. Instead he stops talking and hugs her tightly. It's the first real point of contact since he poked her that first day.

Clarke buries her face in his neck, embarrassed about her tears. Bellamy doesn't joke, not like she expects him to. he simply whispers "I know," in her ear and rubs circles into her back.

They stay like that for an hour.

/

Everything else seems to happen all at once after that, and pretty soon it's the day of impact.

The asteroid comes, a dark shape in the sky for all to see. People slowly stop partying one by one and look up at it. A few are crying, but otherwise, the constant noise of the past few weeks is gone as they stare into the face of death. Bellamy doesn't say a word. He holds Clarke's hand. Octavia stands on his other side.

Clarke closes her eyes and makes a wish. (_Please, please don't. Not yet, not now._)

/

It doesn't come true.

* * *

><p>IV.<p>

Bellamy Blake has been waiting for three days for a ride out of the city. When it started, there were perhaps a hundred people out here on the highway, holding out pleading signs and thumbs at every car that went by. Now he's the last one left, by some cruel twist of fate. Most cars just pass him by, already too full of people to bother or going the opposite of his way. He doesn't blame them. Everyone these days is desperate to be somewhere else, just once before it all ends.

Eventually, his salvation arrives in the form of a beat-up ford with fading paint and (surprisingly) only the driver in the car.

"Where are you headed?" the driver asks. She looks younger than him, perhaps only twenty with bright blue eyes and blond hair that shines in the midday sun.

"Ark," he replies. "But if you could get me to Goose Creek, or even Columbia, I might even be able to walk the rest of the way."

The driver looks at him, eyes wide. Bellamy's heart sinks. Maybe she's not even headed in his-

"That's funny, because I'm headed right there myself," the driver says. Bellamy's heart stops. It's almost too good to be true. At best, he was expecting Columbia, with a long walk ahead of him. Never did he really imagine someone could drive him practically to Octavia's doorstep.

"Really?" he asks, still in shock.

"Yeah," she replies. "What's your name?"

"Bellamy," he says.

Her eyes widen again. "Oh, it's you," she replies.

"Me?"

She shakes her head. "You were pretty infamous back in the day," she says with a smile. "I'm Clarke, by the way."

And that's how it begins.

/

The road stretches out endlessly before Bellamy, only serving to make his anxiety spike. He's still way too aware of how much distance is between him and Octavia. Clarke seems to pick up on this and talks away, distracting him with stories from her life in Ark as well as the years after she moved away.

Bellamy thinks it's strange they never met. Ark was the kind of blip on a map that you had to be living in in to have heard about. There were perhaps 500 people all up, and that was in a good year.

But he more than makes up for all those years of not knowing her now. She tells him about her life, how she was pre-med, twenty-one and hoping to see her mother one last time before the end of the world. In exchange, he tells her about himself, though he skirts around the worst of it, even though he has a feeling she might already know some of it. People in Ark were never good at keeping secrets.

Mostly, he talks about Octavia, how he's looking forward to seeing her again, even if it has been two years since he last saw her.

"Why didn't you do this sooner?" Clarke asks.

"There was never enough time," he replies. "I always told myself I'd do it later."

Clarke smiles wryly in agreement. "I get that," she replies.

/

They're a hundred miles out from Ark when Clarke's car breaks down. Bellamy swears when it happens. Clarke doesn't say anything, instead she purses her lips in an expression that looks like she's trying to hold back tears.

After a few desperate attempts at trying to restart it and a couple of absurd fantasies of rescues, Bellamy is forced to admit defeat.

"I'm so sorry," Clarke says, as they're standing on the side of the road.

Bellamy doesn't know what to say. All he knows is that this is it. This is where he's going to spend his last day on earth. There might only be a hundred miles left, but there's no way they could make it in a day. Suddenly, he's angry. Not at Clarke, but at the unfairness of it all. The world wasn't supposed to end now. Shouldn't it happen when the sun expands and swallows the planet whole billions years from now?

All he knows that it shouldn't end like this, not with so much left to do. Clarke was supposed to become a doctor. He was supposed to, well, do something. Not just be standing here in the middle of fucking _nowhere_, so close to home, yet not quite able to touch it.

He itches to break something, to have the satisfaction of control one last time before he's the one being destroyed along with the rest of the damn planet. His fingers curl into fists. But just as he spots a fencepost that looks ripe for destruction, Bellamy feels a hand on his.

"That's not going to help anything," Clarke says softly.

"We're so close," he says, voice cracking. "Tell me that's fair."

"It is what it is," Clarke replies, but he can hear the sadness in her voice.

"I was supposed to see her," Bellamy says, greif overwhelming him. "And I fucking failed."

Clarke teases out his fingers and threads them through her own. "You did the best you could. If anything, I failed. I was supposed to get you there."

"You're forgetting about your mother," he says softly.

"That too," Clarke says with a bitter laugh. "Another fucking failure."

"It's not your fault."

"I was the one who bought the shitty car. I should've known it'd fail on me when I needed it the most."

Bellamy doesn't know what to say. Instead, he hugs her, as much for himself as it is for her. Clarke holds onto him tightly.

/

They camp out for the night, using Clarke's car as a 'tent' ("the only thing it's going to be good for now." Clarke jokes). They push the front seats back and lie down, facing each other. Clarke reaches out and links her hand with Bellamy's.

"I wish we had more time, and not just so we could reach O," Bellamy says to her in the middle of the night. The sky above them is starry and bright, so much like home that it makes his heart ache. It's been years since he's seen a sky like this.

"I know," Clarke replies. He thinks he sees a blush on her cheeks, but there's almost no light to go by.

Suddenly, the weight of everything he'll never do comes crashing down on him full force and he's crying, really crying for the first time in years. Clarke awkwardly moves to the edge of her seat so she can hug him tightly.

"I wasted so much time," he sobs, thinking of O, who he'll never see again and even Clarke, who he'll never get to know more than he does now. This is all that's left - the two of them a broken-down car parked on the side of a highway, waiting for the end of the world to come.

"Me too," Clarke says softly. There's really no time for condolences now, no words of comfort either of them can give. The end of the world will be here tomorrow and there's nothing to be done to stop any of it. They're too late now.

After a while, the tears dry and they're left lying there, holding eachother tightly, neither willing to be the first to let go. Bellamy can't deny he feels something for Clarke. It's not exactly love, but he feels like he probably could have fallen in love with her if he had the time.

He wants to tell her that, but it would only cause more pain for them both and there's no need for any of that now. So, he stays silent, content with holding her through the night.

Somehow, it doesn't take him long to fall asleep.

/

They're still asleep when the world ends.

* * *

><p>V.<p>

Though she's seen it so many times before, the view of the Earth from the Ark space station never fails to take Clarke's breath away. The vast expanse of the planet with its only moon above and the stars scattered across the infinite darkness like grains of sand is perhaps her favourite view in the universe. No matter how many other planets she's seen, there's just something about Earth from above that takes her breath away. There's no place like home, as the old Earth saying goes.

It's strange to realise this will be one of the last times she'll ever see it. That _anyone _will ever see it.

Clarke supposes she should feel honoured she's here, that she of all people can be here to witness the event itself. But all she feels is a hollow sort of sadness at being one of the witnesses to the final hours of the first ever home of the human race. It doesn't matter that all Earth is now is a craggy, misshapen rock, too hot to support any kind of life. It's a far cry from its glory days as the oldest life-bearing planet in the known universe.

When she sees the Earth, Clarke sees its history, all of those years humans spent on its surface as the universe grew up all around them. She's always wondered what it was like in those days, back when the whole of humanity never set foot outside of their atmosphere. How was it, to live a life tethered to the ground? Clarke can't imagine it.

Her comm buzzes, interrupting her thoughts. It's a reminder for the "party" next week (though she thinks the title of funeral would be more appropriate), when the event itself will happen. She's in charge of coordinating speeches.

Clarke sighs. As much as she's looking to seeing everyone on the station, she isn't sure of she wants to do it under these circumstances. They can call it a party all they want, but all Clarke can think about is the moment when billions of years of history will be lost in an instant.

Hey? You done in here?" a voice calls out from behind her.

Clarke doesn't turn around. "Not yet," she says, thinking it might be one of the hundreds of event planners, all getting ready for the best and most exclusive party the universe has ever seen.

"Well, do you mind? Some of us have got to clean, Princess," the voice replies. Clarke whirls around to face the speaker. It's not one of the event planners, but a janitor with a cleaning kit in hand and a bored look on his face.

"Oh, I thought you'd be in here later," she says.

"It's already eight," he replies dryly, obviously completely done with her, as if she's just an annoying child. Nevermind he looks barely older than her.

"Is it?" she asks and glances down at her comm. Sure enough, it's 8:01. "Oh."

"Yes, now do you mind?" he asks. "This place isn't going to clean itself."

Clarke rolls her eyes and gets up to leave. There's no use pissing off the cleaning crew, especially since a few of them can be particularly vengeful. She's already witnessed a few of the other guests go through that ordeal and that's not something she wants for herself.

The janitor doesn't say a word when she goes, though she can feel his dark eyes on her as she walks away.

/

Clarke comes back the next day, but this time she remembers to bring a sketch pad. It might be obsolete, but there's something pleasant about putting a pencil to paper and _creating_. She loses herself completely in the process.

"You're here again?" someone asks, surprising her so badly she flinches, leaving a thick, black line over the drawing.

"You make me fuck that up," she replies. "And yeah, I guess I am."

"Well, it's eight," he voice says and she looks up to see the janitor standing there again.

"Oh, sorry," she says, getting up to leave. Clarke sighs mournfully at her drawing. It's completely ruined now.

"It'd look better if it didn't have that line through it," the janitor says.

Clarke rolls her eyes. "Well yeah, it would, but I guess _someone _interrupted me."

"Why do bother then? Isn't it going to be more exciting next week when it all blows up?"

"I guess I just don't _want_ it to be gone," Clarke says honestly. "There's too much to lose."

"It's a hunk of dead rock in space."

"It was _our_ hunk of dead rock in space, once," she retorts.

The janitor looks at her, frowning slightly as if trying to work her out. "I didn't think you'd care about it."

"Why wouldn't I?" Clarke replies.

"I thought you all liked having an excuse to party rather than think about what we're losing."

"So you think I'm shallow, just like that?"

"You're Clarke Griffin. The whole fucking galaxy caters to your every whim. So, why shouldn't you be shallow?"

Clarke winces at the use of her full name. Normally, she hates it. Hates how much power she has simply for being alive. It's not fair and she doesn't want that. All she wants is respect for herself, not her name. "Well, if you seem to know so much about me, then it's fair that I should know something about you," she finally says. It's dangerously close to flirting, but she finds she doesn't care.

"Like what?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

"You name, for starters," she replies.

"Bellamy Blake, and right now, I've got a whole section to clean, so if you don't mind," he says, holding up his cleaning kit.

"Well, then, I guess I'll go," she says, moving past him. "Sorry I wasted you time."

/

The next day, she makes a point of staying there until eight, waiting for Bellamy to come in. Clarke isn't exactly sure why she does it. Bellamy Blake can be rude as hell, but still she's here, wanting to know more about this man. There's just something about him that makes her want to push. Of course, there is also the fact that he's completely attractive, which probably helps a lot more than Clarke wants to admit.

"You're here again?" he asks when he comes in, right on eight.

"The view is better here," she replies, looking over her shoulder.

"I still don't see why you bother looking at it so much. You don't care about any of this."

"And why wouldn't I?" she demands. "Why shouldn't I care about Earth?"

"I thought you people only liked shiny new things." Clarke doesn't miss the bitter edge to his voice.

"Not everyone is like that, Bellamy," she says. He seems surprised that she's just said his name.

"I have work to do," he says. "And I don't have all night."

"Maybe I can help you there," she finds herself saying.

There's naked shock on his face for a split second before his face rearranges back into indifference. "I didn't think you're the type to get down on your hands and knees to scrub, Princess."

"Well, I guess I'm just full of surprises."

And that's how she finds herself cleaning alongside Bellamy Blake. There's no actual getting down on her knees and scrubbing, though Clarke almost wishes there was, if only to prove him wrong. But even so, he seems surprised she's here at all and Clarke doesn't miss the way he keeps looking over at her.

"So the Princess can actually work," Bellamy says when they're done.

"I told you I could," Clarke replies, though now she feels a strong desire to sleep. How many times a day does he have to do this? And a _whole section_ on his own? She realises then that he must be extremely strong and that there might be some particularly nice muscles hidden under that uniform.

Bellamy just nods. "I'm surprised you didn't faint from all of that. Didn't break a nail?"

"Nope. So, what's next?" she asks. Her entire body is aching from the effort it took to clean this one observation deck, but she'll be damned before she lets him know that.

"I think I can manage the rest on my own. You're free to go back to your tower, Princess."

Clarke sticks her tongue out as she walks past him.

/

They keep up the routine all through the rest of the week. Clarke makes her way to the deck the moment she can break free from the "party" planning (which turns out more often than not to be gossiping with a few comments about decor thrown in) and sits there for a while, relaxing until Bellamy arrives and she helps him clean.

They talk more and Clarke finds out more about him. He's twenty-five (three years older than Clarke herself), an ex-soldier (though he doesn't say why) and living on Aglora (Clarke worries absently about the distance between his home and hers on Ustoria) and has a sister he'll do anything to protect. Clarke enjoys the stories about Octavia the best, mostly because of the way his whole face lights up when he talks about her.

Every time their conversations end, Clarke feels a pang of disappointment and immediately starts anticipating their next meeting, like she's some schoolgirl with a crush all over again. Bellamy seems to enjoy their meetings too, looking a little lighter every time she turns and sees him at the door.

Of course, she knows this can't last. Soon, the passenger ships dock back again on Vephus, the Ark will be torn down for scrap, and she'll go home, or to the next social event. Bellamy will probably go onto another space station and spend years on some distant outpost, cleaning. But that doesn't mean she refuses to hope that maybe, just maybe, they'll still be able to see each other. She doesn't want to let all of this fade into nothing more than a distant, but pleasant memory of the past.

"I can't believe tomorrow is out last night here," Clarke says with a sigh on the day before the 'big event'.

"Time flies when you're floating through space," Bellamy replies. "I spent three years on rotation on a satellite above Kyro and it passed in the blink of an eye."

He talks often about his soldier's past, she notes. But he's never mentioned why his career was cut so short.

"Kyro?" she asks, surprised. "I didn't think there was much out there."

"There's a whole world out there, Princess."

"I wish I could see it all," Clarke says with a sigh. "I wish we could go back and see how it really was before."

"That'd be something," Bellamy says with a laugh. "Too bad they haven't cracked time travel."

Clarke looks out the window. "I wish I could go down there, just once to see it."

"Haven't you done a holo tour?"

"Yes," she admits. "But it's not the same as actually _being _there."

They both take a moment to just look out the window, at the Earth that's going to be dead tomorrow, all those years of history gone in the blink of an eye. It makes her wonder how people will remember that moment. Will they have it immortalised, like the first moon landing? Or will it be a forgotten sidenote to history?

"It's strange to think we haven't been down there in three hundred years," Clarke says. "No one alive has seen it from the ground, let alone lived on it. And now we never will."

"They've got their own planets now," Bellamy reminds her.

Clarke shakes her head. "It's not the same," she replies.

And then Bellamy's comm buzzes, reminding him to move on to the next room and Clarke sighs.

"I guess this is it, Princess."

Clarke looks at him in confusion. "You aren't going to the party?"

Bellamy shrugs. "I'm just a janitor. They might let us clean the place, but that doesn't mean we're good enough for the party."

"Then come with me," Clarke says impulsively. "I don't have a date."

"I might not live up to the dress code."

"It's a costume party," she says. "You can dress up as anything from Earth's history."

"Then I guess I might be able to come."

/

Just as Clarke was expecting, the party is like a circus of Earth's history - every person here is dressed in some kind of Earthen costume, from caveman attire of 'furs' to the latest vogue of the years humans spent on Earth. There's a few nonhumans too, ambassadors from their respective planets, all doing the best imitation of Earthen clothes that their strange bodies allow.

Clarke herself chose to go as Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space. Unfortunately, this isn't a mod-tech party, so she's confined to the restrictions of her own body, opting for a brown wig and custom-made space suit to replicate the one that the woman herself might have worn. As expected, not many people know who she is; instead asking of Clarke is "a Lady Neil Armstrong". It's frustrating, but perhaps not the worst. At least these people can recognise an old-fashioned space suit.

Bellamy, surprisingly, recognises who she is.

"How did you know?" she asks.

"I used to read space history," he explains. Surprisingly, he's dressed in something other than his janitor's uniform. She almost doesn't recognise him in his suit (she absently wonders where he got it from), which seems to be able to pass as something from the 86th Century. He looks even better than he normally does and people. not just Clarke, notice. A few even try to flirt with him, though he brushes them all off.

For a while, she drifts on in a happy bubble, almost forgetting why she was there in the first place. Then, the time for speeches has come and Clarke feels her throat constricting as she thinks about what's about to come.

The first to go is Thelonius Jaha, the current president of the Galactic Council. His speech is moving, even making someone like Bellamy tear up.

Soon, the procession of speakers Clarke organised have all gone, and an announcement reminds them there's five minutes to go. Everyone crowds closer to the windows, eager not to miss a moment. There's hushed whispers everywhere, speculating as to how it will turn out. Cameras are everywhere too, televising the moment for the entire universe. Clarke likes to imagine every single human and nonhuman alike universe is watching.

"This is it, Princess," Bellamy whispers in her ear. Clarke takes his hand, clinging to it tightly. His thumb rubs circles over the back of her hand.

And then it comes. The Earth, which was on the brink for so long, finally burns; the sun that once gave it life being the one to destroy it. The whole thing is like nothing Clarke has ever seen before, so much more _real_ than the simulations she's seen before in science classes. Nothing compares to the real thing. The whole room is quiet as it happens.

When it's over, Clarke cries.

/

The day after the world ends, reality sets in. Clarke didn't want it to come, but here it is all the same. The time she spent getting to know Bellamy was perhaps the best time she'd had in a long time and she doesn't want it to end.

"Where are you off to now?" she asks, three hours before departures. Bellamy is cleaning out cabins and she joins him, if only to spend a few more minutes with him before they'll both go. Maybe it's pointless, but Clarke wants it to go on for as long as she can make it.

"I don't know," he replies. She notices there's a distance in his voice now, and in the way he's acting. He always seems to be just a little too far away. "Perhaps a job on Iorus."

Clarke is all too aware of the distance between there and where she's going. "Will I see you again?" she asks.

The question seems to pull him up short. He turns to look at her. "You're not tired of me?"

Clarke looks at him strangely, not comprehending. "No," she replies. "Why would I be?"

"You're the daughter of one of the wealthiest people in the galaxy. I'm not exactly high class material," he says with a sharp edge to his voice.

"That doesn't matter to me."

"You say that now," he replies. "But as soon as those ships dock back in, you'll forget about me."

"Well, I don't want to," she tells him. "I like you, in case you haven't noticed, and I'd really like to spend more time with you because of that, _not_ anything else."

Once again, he seems surprised by her. Clarke feels a twinge of annoyance. Shouldn't he know better by now?

"I didn't think..."

"Well, you thought wrong," Clarke says and walks up to him so they're face to face. It's closer than they've ever been before, bar last night though that was under different circumstances.

And then he's kisses her, or maybe she kisses him. But who moves first doesn't matter. What matters is that it's happening (_finally_, she thinks) and it's even better than Clarke was imagining it would be. Her fingers curl into his uniform, pulling him as close as possible while his hands are on her waist. Each point of contact is completely electric, like the sun is expanding all over again and Clarke is the Earth set alight.

When they break apart, she's breathless and he is too. She lets go of his shirt and places a hand over his heart, feeling it beat as rapidly as her own.

"You're not bad," she says, smiling.

"I'm amazing, Princess," Bellamy replies with a devilish smile. "But we've still got work to do, so you're just going to have to wait."

She kisses him again, this time it's barely an echo of the kiss they'd just been sharing.

"No, _you'll_ have to," she says when she pulls away.

Bellamy laughs.

/

When the ships dock on Vephus, Clarke makes a point of staying with him and holding his hand openly. The other guests watch her go past, whispering curiously. Bellamy seems bothered by this attention, but Clarke more than makes up for it with her confident stride.

"I guess I'll have to get use to this," Bellamy mutters as they walk.

Clarke feels a burst of warmth at the implications of his words. "So, you still want to go to Iorius?"

"I don't know, the job on the Ark paid pretty well, so I might be able to go home for a while..." he says, trailing off hopefully.

"I'd kind of like to meet Octavia," Clarke says. "I've heard so much about her."

Bellamy smiles. "Well then, let's get going, Princess."

/

They take the next ship out.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I promise there's a couple of fluffier fics coming soon to make up for this pile of angst (one involves werewolves and demons, the other a slightly different spin on the 'woke up married' prompt). **

**Pronunciation guide for the planets named in the last part (via the fantasynamesgenerator website, which I totally recommend)**

**- Aglora: ag-law-rah (like 'ag' and the name 'laura' put together)**

**- Ustoria: you-stor-eeah ('ee' like 'see')**

**- Kyro: Kai-row (rhymes with 'pyro')**

**- Vephus: Vee-fuss (rhymes with 'see fuss')**

**- Iorius: Eye-or-eeuss ('ee' like 'see' & 'uss' like 'us')**


End file.
